Would very low scoring amount to abuse ?

Looking at the scores on on of my pictures today I found it got a 2/2

from someone I didn't know, so following my usual custom I went to

see what the person likes / had posted and I noticed that they have

scored 69 pictures and 2/2 is actually ABOVE their average. Their

highly rated pictures page has one 6/6 on it. So to get their average

down to 1.9 they must have dished out more 1's than 3s,4s,5s and 6s

put together. What do people think ? Is that an ignorant way of

scoring which is valid all the same, or something which just distorts

things ?

Maybe they only tend to rate images they don't like, or maybe their standards are higher than the average.

 

It's not abuse unless it's all directed at one person or appears to being done with malicious intent.

 

I'm pretty sure I could find 69 images here that deserved 1 and 2 ratings if I looked around!

 

On the other hand it's possible that they don't know what they are doing and need to read the ratings guide.

Rating 69 images with an average below 2/2 would probably be considered abuse. While rating only what you like can be explained reasonably by a desire to avoid discouraging people or hurting their feelings (or wanting to avoid retaliation), the opposite "rating what you don't like" policy doesn't seem to have any corresponding motivation -- at least not one which the site respects or wants to support. As Bob says, out of a half million photos, there are undoubtedly many more than 69 that warrant a 1/1 rating, but what is the point of hunting them down and rating them low?

 

Please report the person's name to abuse@photo.net, and if the facts are as you describe, the ratings will be deleted, and most probably the person will be banned.

It's not too hard to find the person in question. His time on the

site is a bit more than a week. He does have a couple uploaded

images, though. His most recent one has one rating - 1/1.

There's one image on his personal favorites page (6/6). I'll let

you decide.

 

Maybe he'll mail in a check.

There is really no telling if the "photographer in question" is abusing the system, or just doesn't know what they are doing. But I did discover that at least 7 of the 10 images in that photographers portfolio have received 1/1's! In six of those cases it is impossible to determine who gave them the 1/1's because they've only been rated once. On the 7th image I can see the ratings and I see that you yourself James deposited a 1/1 on it. Along with another photographer who received a 1/4 from the "photographer in question".

 

Revenge ratings are abusive also.

It's on James' most recent upload.

 

A lot of people give out the same rates they get.

Brian - I'm not so certain of this users motives - though I'll admit that I haven't taken the time to figure out who it is and look at which images he (I'll assume it's a "he") has rated.

 

I can see reasonable ground for rating only bad images. They're annoying, they waste time and space, people should be made aware of when they're producing junk, perhaps people should be encouraged to be better judges of their own work and not clutter photo.net up with utter junk.

 

Sometimes you get tired of looking at crap. Sure you don't have to look at it for long, but maybe it's valid to react to it?

 

I'd see these as semi-reasonable reasons to rate bad images.

 

Now if the image in question are, by general agreement, not that bad, there might be a question to answer. I wouldn't just ban such a user. I'd ask them what their motive was.

 

I guess I'm now going to have to figure out who this user is and take a look at the facts!

like I said . . . . .

argh! all my responses are one post late. . .

 

Bob, the consensus of the other seven raters on the image in

question is 5/5.

 

The ability provide negative feedback serves no useful purpose.

I found the user in question and there seems to be no pattern of abuse. The ratings are not directed against one person of one type of image. They aren't all 1 and 2 either. There are some 3, 4, 5 and 6 ratings (but not many).

 

The user is new and has only done two rating sessions. Either their standards are high or they are out of sync with the rest of photo.net or they just have a unique sense of aesthetics.

 

What I would do is contact the user and suggest they review their rating scale to bring it more in line with the "norm". I don't see any evidence of intentional abuse here. If I didn't get a response, I'd delete the account and the ratings, but I think the user deserves a chance to answer any charges made against them and make their case for low scores.

 

I'd hate photo.net to become a place like "Lake Wobegon" where "all the children are above average" and low scores are not allowed. On the other hand if everyone rates on a different scale, ratings become even more meaningless!

"<em>The ability provide negative feedback serves no useful purpose</em>

<p>

?. Do you mean that feedback should only be given when you have something nice to say or are you using "negative feedback" in some more technical, electrical engineering sense. Negative feedback keeps systems stable. Positive feedback leads to instability!

<p>

If you mean that unless you can say something nice, keep quiet, why have scores below a 4 available? Why not just rate good, better and best?

<p>

The purpose of telling the truth even when it hurts is to prevent people deluding themselves that they know how to take good photographs.

Actually, Lake Wobegone is exactly what I had in mind. You only

vote for the images that you think are worth discussing. Leave

the other ones alone. The ones that get 'X' views without a 'vote'

get tossed. The ones that are worth discussing get to the newly

named "Photos For Discussion" pages. Those images get

comments only . . no rates or votes.

 

Removing the option of negative rates is an obvious benefit,

given that we all do have a certain attachment to our images and

don't like them to be trashed.

 

Your last comment blows me away :-) I'll let someone else deal

with it for the moment and focus instead on what I think is a

system where being constructive is reinforced as much as

possible.

was curious as i like the style of your work james, so delved into the individuals page who i suspect you are referring to

 

I took a look at his work (yes he did have uploads) many of which i found attractive but strangely all had very low (even 1/1) ratings - one of the 1/1 raters was regonised by name.

 

am in agreement that his rating record seems strangely low but with kettles and black pots now springing to mind I would suggest perhaps an email regarding his intentions might be relevant before jumping to further conclusions.

Bob, 69 ratings with an average below 2 is more or less a pure case of ratings "abuse". This situation comes up a few times per week, and our response is almost always to delete the ratings. The only thing that would make the case more pure would be that the ratings are completely out of step with all the other ratings on the photos, and I suspect that is the case here, because it usually is.

 

If someone rates every photo 6 or 7, we don't like that much either, but we don't consider it abuse unless it seems to be concentrated on just one or two mates. But we don't want people whose only participation in the rating system is as a self-appointed one-man truth squad on a mission to let people know that their photos are rotten.

 

As I said, if the facts are as described, these ratings will be deleted. Usually, the first time, we don't ban the person, unless there are lot of sarcastic comments as well as low ratings. Most of the time, after having the ratings deleted, the person doesn't come back; but if they were to repeat the behaviour, they would be banned.

I recently had a picture rated 1 and 1 when the average seemed to be four or five. When I looked at the person who did this I saw that they seemed to have systematically dished out ones to a whole load of photos. I also found that they had been very abusive about somebody's photo as well. However, the point is that the said rating seems to have disappeared from my folder. Now I think I know why - thanks Brian.

<p> Carl I wasn't referring to James O'Neill's photo, but rather the portfolio of the person James is complaining about. It seems possible that James returned the 2/2 rating he received with a 1/1 on <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/1717288">this shot</a>! In fact several images in that <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=329909&ratings=true"> photographers portfolio</a> have received 1/1's.</p>

 

<p>I just wanted to point out that revenge ratings are abusive also. Truth is I'd be happy to see Brian do what he's planning.</p>

. . . . I understood your post and agree with you. I saw the 1/1

and wondered about it, but you did even more homework than I

did. I have noticed in many cases that people give what they get .

. . all up and down the spectrum. The suspected motives

depend on which numbers are being 'exchanged'.

Very true Carl. Very true.

Brian, maybe I'm misinterpreting "abuse". I'd thinking of it as an action taken with malice in mind rather than ignorance, but I guess abuse can be misuse through ignorance as well.

 

I'd see this as the latter case and thus something requiring education, not punishment. If the user had given one person's portfolio all 1/1 scores, or had given 1/1 scores to everyone who had given him low scores, that's abuse in my book. If a person didn't know that a 1/1 score is reserved for the worst of the worst and gave out such ratings meaning "I don't like the image at all", I guess I'd tend to call that misuse, but it's just semantics. Misuse and abuse are almost synonyms I guess.

 

On that basis I think we're in agreement - though I'd still say people have the right to hand out the occasional 1 and 2 scores without being abusive of the system. Some images deserve those scores! Where it crosses into abuse isn't clear. 5%, 10%, 20% of all ratings?

Let me guess, he either had no pictures uploaded, or even worse, snapshots of kittens?

 

I don't know if it is, or if it should be considered abuse. But I do think it's rude.

If we're only going to allow reviews by people who have demonstrated their own ability to take consistantly excellent photographs, then we're not going to be left with very many reviewers!

<b>Bob (h), Carl and Liv </b> as I said that photographer rated me <i>above</i> average on his scale, and I rated his picure <i>well below</i> average on my scale. I loathed that picture on its (lack of) merits, its a dull subject, badly exposed, badly cropped and subjected to bad treatment in photoshop. I try to keep 1s (and 7s) for 3-5% of worst (and best) pictures of their type that I see. Are 19 out of 20 flower shots better than that ? I'd say so. I posted a comment to the picture to explain my logic. If you think any of these points are wrong, then I'd urge you to comment to his photo and score accordingly. Note also that the only photo on which I acted was one where a critique was requested (which to me seemed like a stone thrower moving into a glass house). Having looked at his folder (Carl's provided the link where I left people to do their home work :-) ) I'd say its the worst picture there.<p>

 

I notice a few of his other pictures have picked up a single 1-1 rating. <b> Bob (a) or Brian </b> would you like to confirm that I'm <i>not</i> the person who posted them because that would be revenge of a childish and petty kind. After all a tit-for-tat rating would have been 2-2, and revenge would have been to quietly low-rate a <i>good</i>photo<p>

 

If anyone wants to check to see if I'm in the habit of revenge rating, I can give them a spreadsheet showing all the scores I have had (including those deleted by the powers that be and for pictures that I have since culled) and all those I've given.

As I've said in the past my reaction to low ratings is to see what the person likes , and ask them what they disliked. What sparked my post here was this person seems to dislike <i>everything</i>. And yes I have left myself open to a charge of revenge rating because this is the only one of my 7 scores less than 3+3 where the person has rated one of mine. Of the 8 people who have given a current picture of mine a 1 or 2 I have exchanged scores with 3. Both the others have given 2s in a balanced bunch of ratings. Where with other photographers I might have recognised a name in the new critique requests and posted to another photo in the folder "this is better than the one you put up for critique", and not scored the inferior picture, here I've scored the one he asked for. That's the total of my "revenge".<p>

 

<b>Bob (a),Anno</b> You're right, having looked at the uploads and highest rated pictures for quite a lot of people, there is very little corelation between abilty to take a picture and critique one - any more than Opera critic needs to compose an opera.

Bob-

 

No no, I completely agree... it's just annoying to get and see such low reviews on others from people who take such putrid photographs when I know that most photographers would agree that my work and the work i am refering to is absolutely stellar in comparison.

I don't much like people that give out only low rates but I'd have to agree that if this person is to be given a reprimand then it should probably also be given to the "revenge raters". I'm not talking about James's 1/1 that went back, perhaps in his mind it was a 1/1 though it is still rather suspicious given it's in response. The person I'm wondering about is the one that hit every photo with a 1/1. I won't state his name here, but by checking all the photo's with 5 or more ratings there was one name that had hit them all(and I'd bet the farm he is the one who hit all the other ones). Considering it's probably a revenge rating yet this person has no photos I'd guess it'a an alternate account. Shouldn't people such as this be dealt with as well?

Yes, they should, and I trust that they will be!